Google

It looks like Google is finally moving into the San Francisco ride-sharing market. According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech giant is looking to offer commuters cheaper rates (and lower fares) than the two big players, Uber and Lyft. The plan is to connect drivers and riders who are going in the same direction, instead of the on-demand service you would see with other ride-sharing services.

The next time you do a search on your phone, you may notice something unusual—the search history drop down has a new look. Well, it's new for some people. It's more compact with search terms in a series of blocks. This appears to be the default for a few users, but everyone can try it with a little keyboard trickery.

Back in November last year, Google rolled out a new-look Google+ and deemed it a 'preview' of what was to come. It was generally assumed that at some point this would replace what has become known as 'Google+ Classic,' and that day has now arrived, with the announcement that the Web preview will be the default look from today onwards.

This isn't entirely a surprise: last week Google issued a reminder saying that today was the day, so we were prepared for this eventuality. That said, I personally find the Web preview better than the Classic interface - I much prefer the material look over the somewhat out-of-place design and general jankiness of Google+ Classic.

The Chromebook Pixel 2015 (or the Pixel 2, as it is more commonly known), is just as interesting a device as its predecessor. It offers a fantastic build quality, touchscreen, dual USB Type-C ports, and more recently, the full Google Play Store. The Pixel 2015 was sold in two configurations, the base model for $999 discontinued in April, and another at the $1,299 price point with a faster Core i7 CPU, 64GB of on-board storage, and 16GB of RAM.

But now we say goodbye to the Pixel 2015. It has been out of stock since at least August 28, usually indicating the end of a product's life on the Google Store.

Google updated the Photos app a few months ago to add proper support for burst images, and it looks like the web version has now done the same. We're not sure when this happened, but the change seems to have gone mostly unnoticed. So, we're just letting you know.

Another day, another A/B test has come our way at Android Police. This time, Google is testing out a new Inbox search UI, replacing the dropdown search menu that's been ever-present since Inbox launched.

The UI shows three categories: contacts, businesses, and refinements. Contacts and businesses show people or companies that you regularly contact, while refinements highlights other options you may be likely to search for, such as 'sent emails from last week,' or 'attachments.' These are side-scrolling, with what looks like six options in each row, although it could be more. It's possible this is the first indication of the "Assistant" feature Cody unearthed in a recent teardown, but we can't really be sure.

Google Contacts is a great way to keep your contacts organized, but the Android version always lacked some features from the web app. The Android app has always been simplistic in nature, with the UI consisting of just a constant stream of contacts and an Add button. Google Contacts 1.5 is a welcome improvement, so let's dive in!

User interface changes

The hamburger menu in action.

Previously, the Google Contacts app used just two tabs, Favorites and All. This has been replaced by a hamburger menu with more options. There are options for viewing contacts and duplicates (which we will get to later), as well as filtering by labels and accounts.

Google has been testing Cast support in Hangouts for over a year, with the most recent sighting back in July. The feature never rolled out widely or was officially acknowledged by Google, until now. Casting directly to Hangouts is coming to everyone soon thanks to full Google Cast integration with Chrome on the desktop.

Do you have 5-10 seconds to spare? Google would like you to spend that time getting something done in its new Crowdsource app. You can apply your human sensibilities to translation and text transcription, and in return you get a sense of satisfaction. Yep, that's it.

The idea of a smartphone that magically turns into a full PC has been something of a pipedream for a while now. Motorola tried it with its Atrix laptop dock, Canonical is trying something similar with its Ubuntu Unity phone OS that can dock into a monitor. Even Microsoft is giving it a go with Windows Phone devices that can dock into a slimmed-down ARM Windows environment. The latest attempt with an Android base comes from "Maru OS," the brainchild of developer Preetam D'Souza.